


Heartbox

by Shachaai



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-23
Updated: 2012-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-10 13:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shachaai/pseuds/Shachaai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Russia makes a strange partner, and England is better at looking after hearts than he thinks he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heartbox

**Author's Note:**

> RusEng, potentially disturbing stuff about bodyparts not always being attached to the body. Start writing one thing, end up writing another, that’s me. _Go where the plot-bunnies take thee._  
>  This is strange, and has next to no point to it whatsoever.

Sometimes people ask England what dating Russia is like. Courting Russia. Being _one_ with Russia. The languages and words change, slip and slide and slur the question from person to person, time to time, but it is always essentially the same question in the end. What’s it like-?

Russia, England tells them (when he’s distracted, when he’s in the mood to be agreeable), Russia is – _well._

The words catch with their sharp hooks before they leave England’s lips, desperate clinging, all the words in the world to weigh down his mouth and tongue. But _oh,_ England has such expressive eyes, the green of magic and oceans, beer bottles and meadows of grass. _They_ tell their tales, because a _gentleman_ doesn’t kiss and tell, but –

England’s not always a gentleman. Sometimes he snaps and he snarls like a wounded creature, and sometimes he drifts off into the shadows of history that ache to wrap around him, a little lost and wandering and not quite settled inside his own body, in his own head. Somewhere else entirely, and then, and _then –_

The world is full of empty houses.

Russia, England says (curls himself up into a small ball when the evening draws close and touches his lips and throat with amber fingers, gold like the whiskey that’s burned down his throat), Russia leaves pieces of himself around the house. 

Most people assume England is being poetic, talking of the things friend and lovers always leave behind them: imprints in the bed-sheets, a spare toothbrush by the sink, doodles drawn with fingertips in the flour on the countertop and a favourite mug still half-full of cold tea. 

England is not being poetic. In the slightest. He has found Russia’s very solid – in the sense _anything_ about their corporeal presence as socio-ideological entities is solid – heart casually sitting in the middle of his hallway on more than one occasion, and has accidentally sat on the organ the few times it disappeared under one of his sofa cushions. It always leaves a mark on his trousers.

(The heart just _feels_ like Russia.)

What exactly does one do with the literal heart of a Nation they profess to be… _fond_ of? The only hearts England has handled before are the ones he’d went on to subsequently either lose or destroy, but this, Russia’s heart (beating, beating, though it’s missing its owner’s chest) like _this,_ is different and –

England picks the heart up – from the floor or the sofa or the table or wherever he finds it -, so at least his cat won’t try to eat it. It probably wouldn’t be very good for the cat, and it would probably be even _worse_ for Russia and whatever exactly it is England has going on with him.

Russia’s heart is warm (beating), a little damp to touch and…heavy. Weighed down with history and responsibility, surely, memories for England to curl his fingers around, staring at the dark organ in his hands. It feels like he’s missing a battlefield, the shriek of war, because the tick-tock toll of the clocks in his house, the hum of his fridge and a bird chirping in his garden outside…none of those sit right beside someone’s _heart_ being so casually misplaced from their chest.

(England gets a little way to explaining this when he’s drunk. Russia is difficultly _different._ )

England puts the heart on a small embroidered cushion and the cushion in a small sealed box, because putting the heart in the fridge didn’t seem like a terribly good idea, and putting it in the box by itself made it look lonely. He phones Russia after he’s had a cup of tea, and two days later Russia is on his doorstep again, tall and broad and smiling even though he’s missing major components from his chest.

Russia just smiles _brighter_ when he sees the box, and he’s all but _glowing_ when he opens it to find the heart nestled on the now-stained embroidered cushion inside of it, lifting out both like some kind of strange trophy. He puts the heart back in his chest and spends the night in England’s home and bed, an almost smothering hold in the dark under the duvet, firmly wedging England into his body and refusing to let him go. (His feet are cold.)

Russia leaves in the early morning after apologetically dragging England up into a kiss goodbye, disappearing down the garden path with a scarf-flap and the smile he’d worn when he’d came.

His heart is sitting beside England’s tea-mug when England goes through into the kitchen – and England stares at it for a little while, before nudging away his cat’s curious paws and putting the heart back into its box until Russia chooses to visit him again. 

They do this a lot.


End file.
